almost exclaimed aloud in my amazement, for the light from a window fell
full on the figure ahead of me, and I recognised my cousin Ethne. She
was sleep-walking, a habit she had had from her childhood, and which
apparently she had never outgrown.
For some minutes I stood there, undecided how to act, while she passed
on down the stairs, out of sight. To wake her I knew would be wrong. I
knew, also, that she had walked thus a score of times without coming to
any harm. There was, therefore, no reason why I should not return to my
room and leave her to her wandering, yet still I remained rooted to the
spot, all my senses strained, alert. And then suddenly I heard Princep
whine. A series of low, stertorous growls followed, growls that made my
blood run cold! With swift, noiseless steps, I stole along to the
minstrel's gallery which overlooked that portion of the hall that
communicated with the library. As I did so, there arose from immediately
below me a succession of sharp snarls, such as a dog gives when he is
in deadly fear or pain.
A shaft of moonlight fell across the polished floor, and by its aid I
was just able to distinguish the form of Princep crouched against the
wainscoting. He was breathing heavily, his head turned all the while
towards the opposite side of the room. I looked in the same direction.
Out of the darkness gleamed two fiery, golden orbs, two eyes that moved
slowly to and fro, backwards and forwards, as though the Thing were
prowling round and round. Now it seemed to crouch as though ready to
spring, and I could hear the savage growling as of some beast of prey.
As I watched, horrified, fascinated, a _portiere_ close by was lifted,
and the white-robed figure of Ethne appeared. All heedless of danger she
came on across the hall, and the Thing, with soft, stealthy tread, came
after her. I knew then that there was not an instant to be lost, and
like a flash I darted along the gallery and down the stairs. But ere I
gained the hall a piercing scream rent the air, and I was just in time
to see Ethne borne to the ground by a great, dark form, which had sprung
at her like a tiger.
Half frantic, I dashed forward, snatching as I did so a rapier from the
wall, the only weapon handy. But before I reached the spot, a voice from
the study doorway called: "Stop!" and the next moment the report of a
pistol rang out.
"Good God!" I cried. "Who have you shot?"
"Not the girl," answered the grim voice of my uncle, "you may trust my
aim for that! I fired at the eyes of the Thing. Here, quick, get lights
and let's see what has happened."
But my one and only thought was for Ethne. Moving across to the dark
mass on the floor, I stretched out my hand. My fingers touched a smooth,
fabric-like cloth, but the smell was the smell of fur, the musky,
sun-warmed fur of the jungle! With sickening repugnance, I seized the
Thing by its two broad shoulders and rolled it over. Then I carefully
raised Ethne from the ground. At that moment Giles and a footman
appeared with candles. In silence my uncle took one and came towards me,
the servants with scared, blanched countenances following.
The light fell full upon the dead, upturned face of Sir Alister Moeran.
His upper lip was drawn back, showing the strong, white teeth. The two
front ones were tipped with blood. Instantly my eyes turned to Ethne's
throat, and there I saw deep, horrible marks, like the marks of a
tiger's fangs; but, thank God, they had not penetrated far enough to do
any serious injury! My uncle's shot had come just in time to save her.
"Merely fainted, hasn't she?" he asked anxiously.
I nodded. My relief at finding this was so, was too great for words.
"Heaven be praised!" I heard him mutter. Then lifting my beautiful,
unconscious burden in my arms, I carried her upstairs to her room.
* * * * *
Can I explain, can anyone explain, the mysterious vagaries of atavism? I
only know that there are amongst us, rare instances fortunately, but
existent nevertheless--men with the souls of beasts. They may be
cognisant of the fact or otherwise. In the case of Sir Alister I feel
sure it was the latter. He had probably no more idea than I what
far-reaching, evil strain it was that came out in his blood and turned
him, every seven years, practically into a vampire.
V
THE KISS
The quiet of the deserted building incircled the little, glowing room as
the velvet incircles the jewel in its case. Occasionally faint sounds
came from the distance--the movements of cleaners at work, a raised
voice, the slamming of a door.
The man sat at his desk, as he had sat through the busy day, but he had
turned sideways in his seat, the better to regard the other occupant of
the room.
She was not beautiful--had no need to be. Her call to him had been the
saner call of mind to mind. That he desired, besides, the passing
benediction of her hands, the fragrance of her corn-gold hair, the sight
of her slenderness: this she had guessed and gloried in. Till now, he
had touched her physical self neither in word nor deed. To-night, she
knew, the barriers would be down; to-night they would kiss.
Her quiet eyes, held by his during the spell that had bound them
speechless, did not flinch at the breaking of it.
"The Lord made the world and then He made this rotten old office," the
man said quietly. "Into it He put you--and me. What, before that day,
has gone to the making and marring of me, and the making and perfecting
of you, is not to the point. It is enough that we have realised, heart,
and soul, and body, that you are mine and I am yours."
"Yes," she said.
He fell silent again, his eyes on her hungrily. She felt them and longed
for his touch. But there came only his voice.
"I want you. The first moment I saw you I wanted you. I thought then
that, whatever the cost, I would have you. That was in the early days of
our talks here--before you made it so courageously clear to me that it
would never be possible for you to ignore my marriage and come to me.
That is still so, isn't it?"
She moved slightly, like a dreamer in pain, as again she faced the creed
she had hated through many a sleepless night.
"It is so," she agreed. "And because it is so, you are going away
to-morrow."
"Yes."
They looked at each other across the foot or two of intervening space.
It was a look to bridge death with. But even beneath their suffering,
her eyes voiced the tremulous waiting of her lips.
At last he found words.
"You are the most wonderful woman in the world--the pluckiest, the most
completely understanding; you have the widest charity. I suppose I ought
to thank you for it all; I can't--that's not my way. I have always
demanded of you, demanded enormously, and received my measure pressed
down and running over. Now I am going to ask this last thing of you:
will you, of your goodness, go away--upstairs, anywhere--and come back
in ten minutes' time? By then I shall have cleared out."
She looked at him almost incredulously, lips parted. Suddenly she seemed
a child.
"You--I----" she stammered. Then rising to her feet, with a superb
simplicity: "But, you must kiss me before you go. You must! You--simply
_must_."
For the space of a flaming moment it seemed that in one stride he would
have crossed to her side, caught and held her.
"For God's sake----!" he muttered, in almost ludicrous fear of himself.
Then, with a big effort, he regained his self-control.
"Listen," he said hoarsely. "I want to kiss you so much that I daren't
even get to my feet. Do you understand what that means? Think of it,
just for a moment, and then realise that _I am not going to kiss you_.
And I have kissed many women in my time, too, and shall kiss more, no
doubt."
"But it's not because of that----?"
"That I'm holding back? No. Neither is it because I funk the torture of
kissing you once and letting you go. It's because I'm afraid--for
_you_."
"For me?"
"Listen. You have unfolded your beliefs to me and, though I don't hold
them--don't attempt to live up to your lights--the realisation of them
has given me a reverence for you that you don't dream of. I have put you
in a shrine and knelt to you; every time you have sat in that chair and
talked with me, I have worshipped you."
"It would not alter--all that," the girl said faintly, "if you kissed
me."
"I don't believe that; neither do you--no, you don't! In your heart of
hearts you admit that a woman like you is not kissed for the first and
last time by a man like me. Suppose I kissed you now? I should awaken
something in you as yet half asleep. You're young and pulsing with life,
and there are--thank Heaven!--few layers of that damnable young-girl
shyness over you. The world would call you primitive, I suppose."
"But I don't----"
"Oh, Lord, you must see it's all or nothing! You surely understand that
after I had left you you would not go against your morality, perhaps,
but you would adjust it, in spite of yourself, to meet your desires! I
cannot--safely--kiss you."
"But you are going away for good!"
"For good! Child, do you think my going will be your safeguard? If you
wanted me so much that you came to think it was right and good to want
me, wouldn't you find me, send for me, call for me? And I should come.
God! I can see the look in your eyes now, when the want had been
satisfied, and you could not drug your creed any more."
Her breath came in a long sigh. Then she tried to speak; tried again.
"It is so, isn't it?" he asked.
She nodded. Speech was too difficult. With the movement a strand of the
corn-gold hair came tumbling down the side of her face.
"Then, that being the case," said the man, with infinite gentleness, his
eyes on the little, tumbling lock, "I shall not attempt so much as to
touch your hand before you leave the room."
At the door she turned.
"Tell me once again," she said. "You _want_ to kiss me?"
He gripped the arms of his chair; from where she stood, she could see
the veins standing out on his hands.
"I want to kiss you," he said fiercely. "I want to kiss you. If there
were any way of cutting off to-morrow--all the to-morrows--with the
danger they hold for us--I would kiss you. I would kiss you, and kiss
you, and kiss you!"
II
Where her feet took her during the thousand, thousand years that was his
going she could never afterwards say; but she found herself at last at
the top of the great building, at an open window, leaning out, with the
rain beating into her eyes.
Far below her the lights wavered and later she remembered that echoes of
a far-off tumult had reached her as she sat. But her ears held only the
memory of a man's footsteps--the eager tread that had never lingered so
much as a second's space on its way to her; that had often stumbled
slightly on the threshold of her presence; that she had heard and
welcomed in her dreams; that would not come again.
The raindrops lay like tears upon her face.
She brushed them aside, and, rising, put up her hands to feel the wet
lying heavy on her hair. The coldness of her limbs surprised her
faintly. Downstairs she went again, the echoes mocking every step.
She closed the door of the room behind her and idly cleared a scrap of
paper from a chair. Mechanically her hands went to the litter on his
desk and she had straightened it all before she realised that there was
no longer any need. To-morrow would bring a voice she did not know;
would usher a stranger into her room to take her measure from behind a
barrier of formality. For the rest there would be work, and food, and
sleep.
These things would make life--life that had been love.
She put on her hat and coat. The room seemed smaller somehow and
shabbier. The shaded lights that had invited, now merely irritated; the
whimsical disorder of books and papers spoke only of an uncompleted
task. Gone was the glamour and the promise and the good comradeship. He
had taken them all. She faced to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow
empty-handed--in her heart the memory of words that had seared and
healed in a breath, and the dead dream of a kiss. Her throat ached with
the pain of it.
And then suddenly she heard him coming back!
She stiffened. For one instant, mind and body, she was rigid with the
sheer wonder of it. Then, as the atmosphere of the room surged back,
tense with vitality, her mind leapt forward in welcome. He was coming
back, coming back! The words hammered themselves out to the rhythm of
the eager tread that never lingered so much as a second's space on its
way to her, that stumbled slightly on the threshold of her presence.
By some queer, reflex twist of memory, her hands brushed imaginary
raindrops from her face and strayed uncertainly to where the wet had
lain on her hair.
The door opened and closed behind him.
"I've come back. I've come back to kiss you. Dear--_dear_!"
Her outflung hand checked him in his stride towards her. Words came
stammering to her lips.
"Why--but--this isn't--I don't understand! All you said--it was true,
surely? It was cruel of you to make me know it was true and then come
back!"
"Let me kiss you--let me, let me!" He was overwhelming her, ignoring her
resistance. "I must kiss you, I must kiss you." He said it again and
again.
"No, no, you shan't--you can't play with me! You said you were afraid
for me, and you made me afraid, too--of my weakness--of the danger--of
my longing for you----"
"Let me kiss you! Yes, you shall let me; you _shall_ let me." His arms
held her, his face touched hers.
"Aren't you afraid any more? Has a miracle happened--may we kiss in
spite of to-morrow?"
Inch by inch she was relaxing. All thought was slipping away into a
great white light that held no to-morrows, nor any fear of them, nor of
herself, nor of anything. The light crept to her feet, rose to her
heart, her head. Through the radiance came his words.
"Yes, a miracle. Oh, my dear--my little child! I've come back to kiss
you, little child."
"Kiss me, then," she said against his lips.
III
Hazily she was aware that he had released her; that she had raised her
head; that against the rough tweed of his shoulder there lay a long,
corn-gold hair.
She laughed shakily and her hand went up to remove it; but he caught her
fingers and held them to his face. And with the movement and his look
there came over her in a wave the shame of her surrender, a shame that
was yet a glory, a diadem of pride. She turned blindly away.
"Please," she heard herself saying, "let me go now. I want to be alone.
I want to--please don't tell me to-night. To-morrow----"
She was at the door, groping for the handle. Behind her she heard his
voice; it was very tender.
"I shall always kneel to you--in your shrine."
Then she was outside, and the chilly passages were cooling her burning
face. She had left him in the room behind her; and she knew he would
wait there long enough to allow her to leave the building. Almost
immediately, it seemed, she was downstairs in the hall, had reached the
entrance.
She confronted a group of white-faced, silent men.
"Why, is anything the matter? What has happened? O'Dell?"
The porter stood forward. He cleared his throat twice, but for all that,
his words were barely audible.
"Yes, Miss Carryll. Good-night, miss. You'd best be going on, miss, if
you'll excuse----"
Behind O'Dell stood a policeman; behind him again, a grave-eyed man
stooped to an unusual task. It arrested her attention like the flash of
red danger.
"Why is the door of your room being locked, O'Dell?" She knew her
curiosity was indecent, but some powerful premonition was stirring in
her, and she could not pass on. "Has there been an accident? Who is in
there?"
Then, almost under her feet, she saw a dark pool lying sluggishly
against the tiles; nearer the door another--on the pavement outside
another--and yet another. She gasped, drew back, felt horribly sick;
and, as she turned, she caught O'Dell's muttered aside to the policeman.
"Young lady's 'is seccereterry--must be the last that seen 'im alive.
All told, 'tain't more'n 'arf-an-'our since 'e left. 'Good-night,
O'Dell,' sez 'e. 'Miss Carryll's still working--don't lock 'er in,' sez
'e. Would 'ave 'is joke. Must 'ave gone round the corner an' slap inter
the car. Wish to God the amberlance----"
Her cry cut into his words as she flung herself forward. Her fingers
wrenched at the key of the locked door and turned it, in spite of the
detaining hands that seemed light as leaves upon her shoulder, and as
easily shaken off. Unhearing, unheeding, she forced her way into the
glare of electric light flooding the little room--beating down on to the
table and its sheeted burden. Before she reached it, knowledge had
dropped upon her like a mantle.
Her face was grey as the one from which she drew the merciful coverings,
but her eyes went fearlessly to that which she sought.
Against the rough tweed of the shoulder lay a long, corn-gold hair.
VI
THE GOTH
Young Cargill smiled as Mrs. Lardner finished her account.
"And do you really think that the fact that the poor chap was drowned
had anything to do with it?" he asked. "Why, you admit yourself that he
was known to have been drinking just before he fell out of his boat!"
"You may say what you like," returned his hostess impressively, "but
since first we came to live at Tryn yr Wylfa only four people besides
poor Roberts have defied the Fates, and each of them was drowned within
the year.
"They were all tourists," she added with something suspiciously like
satisfaction.
"I am not a superstitious man myself," supplemented the Major. "But you
can't get away from the facts, you know, Cargill."
Cargill said no more. He perceived that they had lived long enough in
retirement in the little Welsh village to have acquired a pride in its
legend.
The legend and the mountains are the two attractions of Tryn yr
Wylfa--the official guidebook devotes an equal amount of space to each.
It will tell you that the bay, across which the quarry's tramp steamers
now sail, was once dry land on which stood a village. Deep in the water
the remains of this village can still be seen in clear weather. But
whosoever dares to look upon them will be drowned within the year. A
local publication gives full details of those who have looked--and
perished.
The legend had received an unexpected boom in the drowning of Roberts,
which had just occurred. Roberts was a fisherman who had recently come
from the South. One calm day in February he had rowed out into the bay
in fulfilment of a drunken boast. He was drowned three days before
Midsummer.
After dinner young Cargill forgot about it. He forgot almost everything
except Betty Lardner. But, oddly enough, as he walked back to the hotel
it was just Betty Lardner who made him think again of the legend. He was
in love, and, being very young, wanted to do something insanely heroic.
To defy the Fates by looking on the sunken village was an obvious outlet
for heroism.
He must have thought a good deal about it before he fell asleep, for he
remembered his resolution on the following morning.
After breakfast he sauntered along the brief strip of asphalt which the
villagers believe to be a promenade. He was not actually thinking of the
legend; to be precise, he was thinking of Betty Lardner, but he was
suddenly reminded of it by a boatman pressing him for his custom.
"Yes," he said abruptly. "I will hire your boat if you will row me out
to the sunken village. I want to look at it."
The Welshman eyed him suspiciously, perceived that he was not joking,
and shook his head.
"Come," persisted Cargill, "I will make it a sovereign if you care to do
it."
"Thank you, but indeed, no, sir," replied the Welshman. "Not if it wass
a hundred sofereigns!"
"Surely you are not afraid?"
"It iss not fit," retorted the Welshman, turning on his heel.
It was probably this opposition that made young Cargill decide that it
would be really worth while to defy the legend.
He did not approach the only other boatman. He considered the question
of swimming. The knowledge that the distance there and back was nearly
five miles did not render the feat impossible, for he was a champion
swimmer.
But he soon thought of a better way. He went back to the hotel and
sought out Bissett. Bissett was a fellow member of the Middle Temple, as
contentedly briefless as himself. And Bissett possessed a motor-boat.
Bissett was not exactly keen on the prospect.
"Don't you think it is rather a silly thing to do?" he reasoned. "Of
course it's all rot in a way--it must be. But isn't it just as well to
treat that sort of thing with respect?"
Eventually he agreed to take the motor-boat to within a few hundred
yards of the spot. They would tow a dinghy, in which young Cargill could
finish the journey.
It took young Cargill half-an-hour to find the spot. But he did find it,
and he did look upon, and actually see, all that remained of the sunken
village.
He felt vaguely ashamed of himself when he returned to dry land. He
noticed that several of the villagers gave him unfriendly glances; and
he resolved that he would say nothing of the matter to the Lardners.
They were having tea on the lawn when he dropped in. He thought that
Mrs. Lardner's welcome was a trifle chilly. After tea Betty executed a
quite deliberate man[oe]uvre to avoid having him for a partner at
tennis. But he ran her to earth later, when they were picking up the
balls.
"How _could_ you?" was all she said.
"I--I didn't know you knew," he stammered weakly.
"Of course everybody knows! It was all over the village before you
returned.
"Can't you see what that legend meant to us?" she went on. "It was a
thing of beauty. And now you have spoilt it. It's like burning down the
trees of the Fairy Glen. You--you _Goth_!"
"But suppose I am drowned before the year is out--like Roberts?" he
suggested jocularly.
"Then I will forgive you," she said. And to Cargill it sounded exactly
as if she meant what she said.
A few days later he returned to town. For six months he thought little
about the legend. Then he was reminded of it.
He had been spending a week-end at Brighton. On the return journey he
had a first-class smoker in the rear of the train to himself. Towards
the end of the hour he dozed and dreamt of the day he had looked on the
sunken village. He was awakened when the train made its usual stop on
the bridge outside Victoria.
It had been a pleasant dream, and he was still trying to preserve the
illusion when his eye fell lazily on the window, and he noticed that
there was a dense fog.
"Bit rough on the legend that I happened to be a Londoner!" he mused.
"It isn't easy to drown a man in town!"
He stood up with the object of removing his dressing-case from the rack.
But before he reached it there was the shriek of a whistle, a violent
shock, and he was hurled heavily into the opposite seat.
It was not a collision in the newspaper sense of the word. No one was
hurt. A local train, creeping along at four miles an hour, had simply
missed its signal in the fog and bumped the Brighton train.
Young Cargill, in common with most other passengers put his head out of
the window. He saw nothing--except the parapet of the bridge.
"By God!" he muttered. "If that other train had been going a little
faster----"
He could just hear the river gurgling beneath him.
He had got over his fright by the time he reached Victoria.
"Just a common-place accident," he assured himself, as he drove in a
taxi-cab to his chambers. "That's the worst of it! If I happened to be
drowned in the ordinary way they'd swear it was the legend. I suppose,
for that reason, I had better not take any risks. Anyhow, I needn't go
near the sea until the year is out!"
The superstitious would doubtless affirm that the Fates had sent him one
warning and, angered at his refusal to accept it, had determined to
drive home the lesson of his own impotence. For when he arrived at his
chambers he found a cablegram from Paris awaiting him.
"Hullo, this must be from Uncle Peter!" he exclaimed, as he tore open
the envelope.
"_Fear uncle dying. Come at once.--Machell._"
Machell was the elder Cargill's secretary, and young Cargill was the old
man's heir.
It was not until he was in the boat-train that he realised that he was
about to cross the sea.
It was a coincidence--an odd coincidence. When the ship tossed in an
unusually rough crossing he was prepared to admit to himself that it was
an uncanny coincidence.
He stayed a week in Paris for his uncle's funeral. When he made the
return journey the Channel was like the proverbial mill pond. But it was
not until the ship had actually put into Dover that he laughed at the
failure of the Fates to take the opportunity to drown him.